States
Description
A state is the institution which uses claims and enforces a monopoly on certain goods and services within a jurisdiction.
Discussion
The state is not to be interchangeable with "government", the latter referring to the broader way humans coordinate their collective affairs. A state is one option for government structure, but it is by far the only structure of government.
Implementation
The state is a relatively recent phenomenon in human history. Until the seventeenth century, humans around the world largely ordered their collective affairs through family, custom and religion.
Beginning in 1618 the Thirty Years War took a large toll on human life and civil destruction as the Holy Roman Empire fractured. The war ended in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia, a series of agreements which ended the Holy Roman Empire's authority over Europe-wide, effectively establishing as one sovereign entity among many others.
Moreover, the Westphalian agreements relied on the principle of non-interference, meaning the government of one jurisdiction was not legally permitted to intervene in the government of another jurisdiction's internal religious or political affairs.
Mutual recognition, and adherence to, the principle of non-interference established certain jurisdictions as sovereigns. Without any one entity with the authority to control a collection of communities in France, for instance, the many distinct European principalities as autonomous collectives.
In 1651 Thomas Hobbes published Leviathan which argued, and influentially so, that individuals, families and communities derive their legitimacy from the sovereign. Practically, this established the claim of most modern states that it is the state which gives freedom to the individual.
L'etat, c'est moi - Louis XIV
Further Resources
- Hans-Adam II, The State in the Third Millennium (van Eck, 2010)
- Michael Huemer, The Problem of Political Authority (Palgrave MacMillan, 2012)
- Murray Rothbard, Anatomy of the State (Mises Institute, 2009).